


head empty, no thoughts

by AshDoesFandom



Series: we might be in a sitcom [2]
Category: Star Trek: Lower Decks (Cartoon)
Genre: 24k of sam rutherford trying to figure out who has the braincell, Aromantic Tendi, Bisexual Mariner, Demisexual Boimler, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Gen, Meta, Mutual Pining, Not Beta Read, Poker, Queerplatonic Relationships, Requited Unrequited Love, Tumblr Prompt, Unrequited Love, author has not played poker in years and thus does not remember the fucking rules, mariner breaking the fifth wall, sequel to midnight revelations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:53:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26165194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshDoesFandom/pseuds/AshDoesFandom
Summary: Tendi giggles. “Wanna raise the stakes?”“Have you met me?”“That’s fair,” both Tendi and Sam say in the same voice. Mariner rolls her eyes but can’t suppress her smug grin.“Loser has to ask out the next person who enters the room,” Tendi says, dramatically steepling her hands in front of her face.Mariner snorts. Loudly. “What are we, fucking twelve?”
Relationships: Brad Boimler/Beckett Mariner, Brad Boimler/D'Vana Tendi-queerplatonic, Sam Rutherford & Everyone
Series: we might be in a sitcom [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1900084
Comments: 18
Kudos: 68





	head empty, no thoughts

**Author's Note:**

> hi welcome to applebees

It starts like this:

Mariner is teaching Tendi poker. Or well, Mariner is teaching Tendi _her_ version of poker which involves no pants—for some reason—, various pointy objects that Sam is keeping his distance from and an abundance of multi-language profanity that is rather impressive for two women outside of the linguistics department.

Really though, Sam is impressed.

Tendi, who has absolutely _no_ poker face, is somehow winning and Mariner is somewhere between proud mom friend™ and shoving her throwing stars at the first person who pokes fun at her losing streak. Somewhere in all of this, Mariner runs out of credits and contraband, so with a sigh and a characteristic half-smirk, she tosses her last chip on the table.

“I’m going all in.”

“Your _all in_ would be scarier if it literally wasn’t your last credit,” Sam remarks sarcastically from where he’s nursing a beer.

Mariner flips him the bird. “Whaddya you got for me, D’Vana?”

Tendi, trying to hold back her shit-eating grin and _failing_ —again _no_ poker face—shoves her huge pile of chips into the center of the table.

“Oh, I’m _all_ in, baby.”

“Good,” Mariner grins back.

“Good,” Tendi replies, crossing her arms.

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

“I’m glad you went all in.”

“So am I.”

“Please stop flirting and finish the game,” Sam mutters, rolling his eyes.

Mariner doesn’t flip him the bird this time but gives him a side-eye that would have been its usual level of pee-your-pants-terrifying if not for the light blush that dusts her cheeks.

Tendi giggles. “Wanna raise the stakes?”

“Have you _met_ me?”

“That’s fair,” both Tendi and Sam say in the same voice. Mariner rolls her eyes but can’t suppress her smug grin.

“Loser has to ask out the next person who enters the room,” Tendi says, dramatically steepling her hands in front of her face.

Mariner snorts. Loudly. “What are we, fucking twelve?”

“You got a better idea?” Tendi taunts.

“Actually,” Mariner lets a smirk crawl across her face. “As long as we’re going with sleepover levels of dares…loser has to get the next person who walks through that door to date them for _three weeks_ without cracking.”

Tendi cackles, throwing down her cards.

“Full house,” Sam absentmindedly notes. “Not bad, Tendi.”

“Yeah, not bad,” Mariner says, revealing her hand to be royal fucking flush. “Enjoy that date, D’Vana.”

Sam chokes on his drink, while Tendi _groans_. Mariner laughs psychotically. “Work on that poker face, baby girl. You’ll get it eventually.”

“Ugh, you were just _letting_ me win.”

“Maybe,” Mariner grins innocently. Tendi scowls at her. “Oh, come on,” she laughs. “Whoever comes through that door next can’t be _that bad._ ”

This was the exact moment that Sam realizes that the universe has a sense of humor, because Brad fucking Boimler walks through the door.

Tendi turns a little blue around the cheeks—the Orion equivalent to blushing, Sam guesses—and smiles at him, waving.

“Fuck,” Mariner hisses. “Abort mission!”

Sam and Tendi frown at her. “What?”

“D’Vana, you _cannot_ date Boimler,” Mariner whispers furiously.

“That was the deal!” Tendi hisses back, throwing her hands up in the air.

“Babe I love you, but you can’t fuck with him like that.”

“And it’s okay to fuck with other people?”

“Yes!”

Sam slaps a hand to his face. “You fuck with Boimler every day of the week, Mariner.”

“That’s different!”

“How?” Tendi demands.

Mariner—the woman who had been promoted and demoted so many times that her file was longer than a goddamn Britannica, jumped head first into anything that remotely whispered of danger, fought with the Captain daily, snarked at superior officers, gave zero fucks about Starfleet protocol, and had probably, at some point, flipped off the devil—is rendered completely speechless.

Sam begins to rapidly connect some dots.

“It’s only for three weeks,” Tendi continues. “And Brad’s kinda cute, in like, an intense _I have crippling anxiety_ way.”

“Brad?” Mariner repeats, looking horrified. “You call him _Brad_?”

“Yes?” Boimler says, coming up behind her. Mariner lets out an uncharacteristic shriek and jumps about a foot in the air.

“Dude _what the fuck_.”

Boimler looks very _very_ confused. “What?”

“What?” Mariner repeats loudly, eyes widening.

“Brad, wanna go out?” Tendi chirps, smiling innocently at him.

Aw, and now Sam has two adorable friends who are blushing, well, _adorably_ at each other and one friend who is having a complete mental breakdown in the background.

“What, really? I would love to— _why aren’t you guys wearing any pants_?” Boimler asks, exasperated. 

Tendi lets out a snicker. “Mariner.”

Boimler gives Mariner an unimpressed _look_. Mariner tries to glare back, but it’s weak for her standards.

“I actually just finished my shift,” he says, turning back to Tendi. “Do you want to hang out?”

While Tendi cheers enthusiastically, Sam discreetly eyes his other friend. Mariner is kind of hyperventilating in the background, hands twitching toward the half-filled bottle of vodka she and Tendi had been chugging earlier. Sam carefully inches it away, unsure if she’s going to chug the rest of it or attack someone with it.

She makes a wounded noise at Tendi, who grabs Boimler by the arm and drags him out of the room, unreservedly talking a mile a minute about something that Sam’s already lost track of.

“What the fuck just happened.”

“I think Tendi asked Boimler on a date,” Sam replies, calmly. Mariner whips her head around and stares at him. The look behind her eyes is _deranged._

“We have to break them up.”

Sun, moon and _stars_ , the next three weeks were going to be a Mariner sized _nightmare_.

* * *

“I don’t _get it_ , she’s completely out of his league—”

“Not true.”

“—they have _nothing_ in common—”

“Sometimes opposites attract.”

“—and she’s just stringing him along! She’s going to dump him in two weeks!”

Sam sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. They were about a week into Mariner’s dare and he already was ready to throw Mariner, Tendi and Boimler—poor, clueless Boimler—out of an airlock. Mariner had already tried to break the two up somewhere around two dozen times and had only succeeded in bringing them closer together.

This of course made Mariner even _more_ determined to sabotage her friends.

“It’s not the end of the world, Mariner.”

“Of course, it is!” she hisses at him. “They break up and then I have to deal with Boimler being _sad_ forever while also not shit-talking my best friend _and_ not letting him know that I was the person who set them up!”

“Or they have an amicable break up and go back to being friends. Dude, they haven’t even progressed past basic hand holding. I don’t think it’s going to be a huge heart wrenching dumping.”

Boimler and Tendi enter the room, holding hands. “I feel like you’re the only one who understands me, sometimes,” Boimler says.

Mariner’s eye twitches.

* * *

“What should I get Brad for Valentines Day?” Tendi asks five days later, apropos to nothing. Mariner sits up so fast that she hits her head on the top of her bunk.

“WHAT.”

Tendi frowns over at her, looking up from her data padd. “Valentines Day? It’s a Terra Prime holiday that humans generally celebrate yearly around the Terra season of—”

“I KNOW WHAT VALENTINES DAY IS.”

Sam winces, along with the few unfortunate ensigns who happen to be in the cabin, at the volume. “You and Boimler are celebrating Valentines Day?” he weakly asks.

Tendi grins, her tongue sticking out between her teeth adorably. “He told me about it last night and asked if we could exchange gifts!”

There’s a dull _thunk_ as Mariner repeatedly hits her head against the wall.

* * *

“Do we need to talk about this?” Sam asks, watching Mariner chug half her weight in alcohol at the bar.

“My liver, my rules.”

“Not your alcoholic diet,” Sam sighs, taking a seat and signaling to the barman. “Although I would lay off the tequila if you want to be functional tomorrow morning.”

Mariner scowls and raises the bottle to her lips again.

“I’m talking about your feelings for Boimler.”

Mariner chokes. “My fucking _what_.”

Sam rolls his eyes. He had hoped—for about a millisecond—that when Tendi had joined their group that someone else would finally, perhaps, have some braincells to go around, but no, it seems that Sam Rutherford is the only rational fucking person in their dysfunctional foursome.

“Don’t be the idiot you pretend to be,” he replies, calmly taking a sip of his own drink.

Mariner narrows her eyes at him. “I don’t have feelings for—”

“I’m not an idiot either, Mariner.”

“Look,” she snaps, “I’m vaguely attracted to almost everyone, it’s just who I am. I do _not_ have feelings for Boimler, I’m just aware that he’s. Aesthetically pleasing and nice to be around.”

“Then stop acting like a crazy person whenever he tries to date anyone,” Sam snaps back. “If you’re not interested, then you need to back off.”

Mariner is quiet for a long moment. “Do you think he and D’Vana—”

“I think they enjoy each other’s company and that they’re both kind of lonely,” Sam replies, before she can finish. “If you want to know more, talk to Tendi.”

His friend nods, soberly. Sam feels kind of bad for snapping at her, but also knows that she appreciates his honesty.

“There’s worse things then falling for Boimler,” he says, nudging her encouragingly. “Even if he _is_ a complete spaz.”

This coaxes a weak grin out of her. “He is so fucking awkward.”

“You should tell him.”

“That he’s awkward? I _have_ , he got all fussed up and started—”

“That you _like_ him,” Sam specifies, grinning.

Mariner, seemingly forgetting that she had just been denying her crush on their friend, protests, “He’s dating Tendi, dumbass, I’m not going to—”

“Hey, trust me on this one,” Sam says. “Just follow your instincts.”

“My instincts are telling me to desert him on an alien planet before I become too attached.”

“Follow _my_ instincts.”

* * *

To absolutely no one’s surprise, Mariner does not, in fact, follow Sam’s instincts.

He isn’t there for what happens next, but hears about it from an amused Tendi who swings up into his bunk that evening to give him the lowdown.

“So, Beckett has a crush on Brad,” she says, hugging his pillow to her midsection.

Sam puts down his data padd and watches Tendi very carefully. “Oh?”

“Yep. She cornered him in the cafeteria, told him his eyes were pretty and that she liked him and then left, screeching something about sitcom-b plots and Starfleet alumni. I think she has inside jokes with herself? I’m not sure what that was about.” 

Sam can’t suppress the laugh that bubbles out of him. “God, she’s crazy. Are you okay?”

Tendi frowns, confused, at him. “Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

“Your best friend has a crush on your boyfriend?”

“My— _my_ _what_? Wait, oh nine _hells_ YOU GUYS THINK BRAD AND I ARE _DATING_?”

Sam has a sudden moment of clarity where he realizes that he does not, in fact, have all the braincells in their group.

“You aren’t?” he dumbly asks.

Tendi starts laughing. She laughs so hard she almost falls out of his bunk—he thankfully catches her in time, but it’s a close one. “Rutherford. _Sam_ ,” she wipes a tear away from her eyes. “I’m aromatic, you absolute complete _dumbass_.”

“You _are_?” Probably not the best reaction to his friend coming out, but Sam hardly has time to apologize, before Tendi is laughing at him again.

“Brad—well, I probably shouldn’t tell you, it’s his thing—but he kind of understands where I’m coming from. We were having _friend_ dates.”

“But… _Valentines Day_ ,” he stresses.

Tendi rolls her eyes. “I asked Brad about Terra traditions and holidays and he gave me a fucking history lecture _it was so boring_. I did like the idea of Valentines Day and asked if I could partake in it with him. He suggested gift giving.”

Sam stares at her. “I _am_ a dumbass.”

“You are,” she agrees. “But I need your dumbass brain to help me get Brad and Beckett together.”

“Oh, so you _do_ have all the braincells,” he says, grinning.

Tendi’s smile is sharp. “I have no _idea_ what you’re on about, but yes. Yes I do.”

* * *

Getting Mariner and Boimler together is _way_ easier said than done. Mariner is avoiding everyone like a goddamn plague and Boimler is fluctuating between literally _vibrating with anxiety_ and being depressed as shit. 

“Well _they_ definitely don’t have the braincells,” Sam says, after another failed attempt to trap the two of them in a room together.

“You need to stop talking about braincells,” Tendi sighs. “Why don’t we just tell them that they like each other?”

“We can’t do that!”

“Why?”

“It’s too easy that way!”

Tendi stares at him.

Sam stares back.

“I’m telling Brad that Beckett has squishy feelings for him,” she deadpans. “And you’re going to try to catch Beckett and tell her that I don’t have squishy feelings for him. And then we’re going to lock them in a goddamn turbolift until they get their freak on.”

Tendi either has _all_ of the braincells or _none_ of them.

* * *

Their plan surprisingly takes a whole lot less subterfuge than Sam was expecting and a lot more—well— _emotions_. He did manage to find Mariner and after guiltily admitting that he may have been a bit wrong about the nature of Boimler and Tendi’s relationship, she was off in a shot, shrieking some nonsense about “third-act bullshit” and how she didn’t sign up to be the “pawn in a romantic subplot.”

Mariner might, actually, be certifiably crazy. 

* * *

Rutherford hears about one of the turbolifts breaking from another ensign in his department. He and Tendi subtly high-five.

* * *

Six hours later—“if there was ever a time for buffer time, that time is _now_ , Tendi”—a grinning Mariner and a mildly disheveled Boimler, exit the turbolift.

* * *

It ends like this:

Tendi is attempting to teach Sam poker. Well. It’s not _actual_ poker, more like a hybrid of Mariner’s version of poker and a card game from Tendi’s home world, but it’s close enough and they’re having fun, so it really doesn’t matter.

Mariner is drunk as fuck, alternating between casually hitting on a flustered Boimler and insulting the shit out of anyone who even _looks_ in their direction.

Tendi lays down her cards. Straight flush. Sam moans in despair. Boimler lets out a shriek of _stop doing that we’re in public you moron_ and Mariner cackles in that unhinged way of hers.

None of them have the braincells.

**Author's Note:**

> LastOneOut asked:
> 
> Valentines Day shenanigans with the ship of your choice? Or maybe board game/poker night with the main four?


End file.
